The winds of change

Just as I was settling into my overnight shift at work last night, a tornado ripped through downtown Atlanta right in front of my building. The windows up here on the 24th floor were bowing from the suction on the outside. It was a pretty scary there for about five minutes. Naturally, my curiosity lead me downstairs and out into the street. Chunks of buildings, insulation, power lines and tons of shattered glass were lying in the road. The ground crunched underneath my feet as I made my way across the glass-strewn street toward the CNN Center, which is one block from my office. Big pieces of metal siding hung precariously out of trees, the ones that made it through the wind. Other not-so-lucky trees lay on top of parked cars and in the road.

In the street outside the CNN Center sat a chair that had been sucked out of the building's lobby into the roadway. Next to it was a car that had been abandoned as the storm struck, the windows blown out and the entire body riddled with pock marks from debris hitting it. The traffic light lay lifelessly on the ground. The whole block was awash with reds and blues from the flashing lights on emergency vehicles and police cars. People wandered around the streets staring at the curtains fluttering in the breeze from windows in the hotel high above their heads.
The whole area was full of people because of a Hawks game at Phillips Arena at the CNN Center and the SEC tournament at the Georgia Dome just down the street.

The most amazing part is no one was killed. As far as I know, no one was even seriously injured.